(Adds adoption)

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights envoy for Sudan, overcoming resistance from African and Islamic states, had her mandate extended for another year on Friday, but a team of Darfur investigators was disbanded.

A compromise resolution was adopted by consensus at the U.N. Human Rights Council, following several days of negotiations with the European Union, officials said.

Sudan's government has been accused of sanctioning killings, rapes and looting in the vast Darfur region, where conflict has raged since 2003, uprooting an estimated 2.5 million people.

African and Muslim nations successfully argued that it was unnecessary to renew both Sima Samar's investigative mandate and that of a separate U.N. group of seven independent experts on Darfur that Samar led this year.

"It has been decided to maintain the mandate of the special rapporteur on Sudan," Romania's ambassador Doru Romulus Costea, who chairs the 47-member state Council, told a news briefing.

Keeping the spotlight on Khartoum is widely regarded as a litmus test for the Human Rights Council, set up in June 2006 to replace the highly politicised U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Sima, a former Afghan deputy prime minister, has served as U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Sudan since 2005. She has reported war crimes by Sudanese forces and their allied militia in the troubled Darfur region.

Unlike the larger group of investigators on Darfur, Samar has the power to carry out fact-finding missions throughout Sudan, deemed crucial to ensuring a full picture of conditions.

"There has been a compromise. It is a good outcome," a diplomat told Reuters.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the deal.

"In fact we feel Sudan has been rewarded for obstruction and its failure to implement recommendations that were identified and compiled by the experts group," advocacy director Juliette de Rivero told a Geneva news briefing.

The experts have reported that Sudanese forces and allied militia had killed hundreds in attacks and bombings on villages in Darfur in the past six months. They also said the Khartoum government had implemented few of their prior recommendations.

African and Islamic countries had argued Samar's independent post was no longer needed in tandem with the expert group, saying conditions in Darfur had improved and Khartoum had cooperated with recent inquiries.

But Egypt's ambassador Sameh Shoukry called on Friday for Samar's mandate to continue for a year, under the compromise resolution he presented on behalf of African countries.

"We encourage her to continue to exert every effort to enhance protection and promotion of human rights in Sudan and cooperation with the government and this Council," he said. (Editing by Stephen Weeks)

AlertNet news is provided by